If your homemade videos look like they were taken in an earthquake, you can smooth it out with a rubber band and a tripod.

A lot of tripods are made for still photos, so even if you use the tripod to pan, your video will look jerky. The best solution (short of buying a more expensive video tripod) is to loop a rubber band around the handle and use that to pull. It'll absorb some of the shock and pan your video much more smoothly. Check out the video above for a demonstration (and a cheesy, hilarious one at that).